PROTESTS were held across Spain yesterday against a Supreme Court ruling that puts banks “above the law.”

Crowds held “caceroladas,” where demonstrators raise an infernal din by banging pans and cooking utensils, in rallies organised by the left-wing United Podemos coalition, which includes anti-austerity party Podemos as well as the Communist Party-led United Left and others. The biggest rally was held outside the Supreme Court in Madrid.

Podemos politician Pablo Iglesias said a ruling that transfers responsibility for paying fees on legal documents and taxes on mortgages from the lending bank to the client, effectively overruling a law passed by Spain’s Socialist Party-led government that said banks should shoulder those costs, was “an attack on the separation of powers and democracy.”